


Optimisation

by JustJasper



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Arguing, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Cloaca, Hate Sex, M/M, Riding, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 11:04:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10592697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: Gil and Kallo fight again, Kallo heads down to the engine room to give Gil a piece of his mind, and it goes from 0 to porn very fast.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Post Gil vs Kallo confrontation (Ryder siding with Gil), pre Gil's "I'm going to try chilling out" talk with Ryder.
> 
> I've only had one playthrough of ME:A so far and I'm not sure about these character's voices but enjoy!!!

A hum throughout the ship, familiar. Not even noticeable to most species, above all the other sounds of the Tempest at work – not even to Kallo, when he's not listening for it like he is now, as the ship waits in Kadara's orbit.

Nice to know it's there though, that the filters and the cycling system aren't slowly suffocating them. They'd be alerted at the first sign of that of course, but if Kallo checks the systems every so often to make sure they're running at optimum, then there's no harm in that.

He notices the change in power distribution after it's been in affect a couple of hours. Strange – the air recycling system is one of the Tempest's constants, the air filtered and cycled consistently, climate optimised for a good balance for the entire crew.

So why isn't the galley receiving as much power as the medbay? Or the armoury as much as the bridge?

“Gil,” Kallo says, opening his comm channel as he checks the figures.

No answer for a second, but faint crispness of the intercom being activated.

“Yes?”

“Can you check the life support systems? I'm getting some strange readings.”

“Strange how?”

“Inconsistent power levels.”

“It's fine, Kallo.”

It's like _that_ , then.

“What have you done, Gil?”

“I've been optimising the system—”

“Lowering the performance of the life support is hardly an optimisation!”

Gil laughs. Always so amused with his little tweaks and tricks.

“I've only altered the power consumption, not the performance.”

“You can't change key systems, Gil.”

“Well according to Ryder I can, and I have, so unless you want to come down here and do my job for me, I'm going to go back to tinkering. Bye now.”

The comm shuts off, bur Kallo isn't done talking.

“Gil,” he says. No answer. “Gil, you can't just ignore me!”

He can try, but Kallo has had enough of this. With nobody around to stop him, or to make him hesitate, he opens the bridge door.

In engineering, Kallo finds Gil calibrating a console. He doesn't even look at him when the door opens.

“Gil.”

“What now?”

“You can't just interfere with key Tempest systems because you're bored.”

“I'm not bored,” Gil says, turning to look at him. He's unflustered by Kallo's anger, about being rude and wrong, and it's been the bane of Kallo's life for weeks, scourge-related near-death experiences aside.

“I'm doing my job. The armory doesn't need the same level of power to the life support as the quarters, it's wasting power that can support other systems. Honestly, the engineers that worked on the Tempest had some strange ideas about efficiency: I don't think it was a thing they could even imagine.”

Kallo's nature isn't usually quick to anger – but then again, the quirk of his own hyperfocused salarian memory means that at any given moment he can experience everything that has ever pissed him off like it's happening again, all at once, and that's sort of a shortcut to anger.

“You have absolutely no idea what it took to design a ship like this,” Kallo says, the space between them disappearing incrementally. “And you have no respect for the engineering marvel that the Tempest is! Or for the crew that worked here, on a project that they would never see the result of, that they would go to their graves not knowing if what they built worked. And it did! We're here because of them, and you come in here with your incessant _tinkering_ and no respect for the marvel of this ship!”

Somehow, in his anger, Kallo has crowded Gil to the wall. He towers over him, and Gil, rather than looking intimidated or at least a little contrite, is smirking and looking up at him through his eyelashes.

“You know,” he drawls, “if you weren't a salarian, this is the part where we'd kiss.”

That's unexpected – the charge between them, and the implication. Bitter anger makes Kallo tense.

“You don't like any salarians, not just me then?”

“It's not like that,” Gil says, without breaking eye contact. “I just thought salarians weren't into, you know, fraternization.”

The ignorance, the sheer _arrogance_ of Gil thinking he understands the Tempest and understands salarians and understands Kallo by extension.

“Shows what you know.”

So Kallo kisses him.

Awkward, admittedly. Kissing isn't really something salarians do with each other, but that's a whole other topic, something he might talk to Jaal about in a respectful discussion of culturally attitudes, but not to Gil.

“Wow,” Gil says, breathless when Kallo pulls away, then, “okay,” and takes Kallo by the collar and kisses him back.

Even more unexpected. If Gil is more used to settling arguments this way, Kallo is still the first one to turn it to something sexual, as he presses his thigh up between Gil's, pressing against the bulge there and distracting Gil from familiarising his mouth with Kallo's.

He opens his mouth and closes it again, like he's about to say something infuriating that would make Kallo realise what he's doing and stop. He's glad when he doesn't.

He can tell Gil is more unfamiliar kissing a salarian than Kallo is a human, but it's lips, teeth, tongues, the mechanics are pretty much the same. Gil is a quick learner, however much of an annoyance he is, fingers digging into the back of Kallo's neck as he rides his thigh, erection apparent.

His body is getting hot, heat prickling under his suit, wetness between his legs. Familiar, the memories of all the other times he's had sex just under the surface of his mind, played in real time like an erotic background loop. They're short-lived, Salarians. Quick minds, quick bodies. Gil seems to be keeping up well enough for a human.

Kallo cups Gil's erection – there's a zip there, concealed under the material somewhere. He presses his palm against Gil, long fingers inching their way between his erection and Kallo's thigh so Gil is rubbing against his hand. He's definitely less of a nuisance like this.

“And you accuse _me_ of tinkering?” Gil says. “Get on with it.”

Until he starts speaking of course.

“ _Fine_.”

Kallo unzips Gil's fly and reaches into his suit, pushes his hand into Gil's underwear to grab him. But this isn't about Gil getting his way again, so Kallo moves away, leaving Gil with his suit undone and his erection out, breathing hard with a flush of red skin creeping up his neck.

“Lay down.”

Gil has never baulked from an argument with Kallo before, but now he just does as told, as Kallo unzips his own suit. His body is throbbing. There's a moment then, a charged pause as Kallo lowers himself to stradle Gil's hips. Kallo could ask a question here, and maybe they'd see sense, maybe they'd stop. He blinks, meets Gil's eyes. Breathless but clearly sure, Gil reaches for his thigh, his grip firm.

“Yeah,” he mutters. Nods a little.

Kallo holds Gil in place – a hand on his chest for balance, not at all gentle – and positions himself over him, lets gravity do the work of pushing Gil's erection into his cloaca. They both moan as Kallo moves, and keeps Gil pinned as he starts to move.

Gil is infuriating even here – the groan of his breath, the grip on Kallo's thighs, the thickness inside him and his smirking face when Kallo moans at it – and just like in any number of arguments about the Tempest, Kallo can't help but engage. He grunts and presses his hand down harder on Gil's sternum, rides him harder, chases his own pleasure down.

It doesn't matter whether Gil is right or wrong, and he's a good engineer who does solid work so he may well not be, damn him, but that was never the issue. He's arrogant and has no respect for Kallo or the Tempest or procedures that were painstakingly designed. None of that is changed by the fact that they're having frantic, grunting sex on the floor of the engine room.

The windows are tinted opaque and the door consoles are red. SAM had the sense not to announce the new privacy settings.

Gil thrusts upwards as best he can, but Kallo is setting the pace, Kallo is the one riding him forcefully, soaking Gil's suit with fluid dripping obscenely from where he slides in and out of his cloaca

It's not an argument, but when Kallo comes hard, his cloaca spasming around Gil's erection, it feels like winning. He grunts and grinds himself down against Gil's pelvis, moves himself through his orgasm and it doesn't matter that Gil shouts and comes inside him, that his hips twitch and buck under him.

“I hope,” Kallo says, still a bit breathless as he gets up off Gil with a sloppy, wet sound, “you'll think about the fact you're not an expert on every subject in the future. You don't always know what you're doing, and one day you're going to mess with something that has consequences.”

“That a threat?”

Gil sounds remarkably casual for someone lying on the floor with his penis out.

“It could be.”

Kallo zips up his suit and leaves the engine room – the doors unlocked now – and leave to go fully document the unnecessary changes Gil's made, just for reference.


End file.
